Living Beyond Yourself – Week 3

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Gotta get me some Agape…

I went to a wedding last weekend.

How many weddings have you gone to where they read 1 Corinthians 13? You know the one:

“…Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…”

Now, how many times have you sat through that reading and felt all warm and fuzzy about your own marriage, thinking, “Yup that is us. We are a picture of wedded bliss bonded with this perfect, blameless love? ”

If you answered a few times – I am impressed. I, on the other had, usually feel a mixture of shame, embarrassment and discouragement. That passage does not describe me.

I made sure not to include that passage on my wedding day. I didn’t want it for two reasons – first because I had heard it at far too many weddings, but mostly because, as I said, I find it a little overwhelming.

If I could attain even five minutes of this perfect love at any moment in my day, I would start jumping up and down. But no, I really miss the mark when it comes to this kind of perfect love.

So for my wedding, I thought that this would be setting the standards a little too high. Even though I wasn’t married yet, and was still totally lost in blind, intoxicating love, I had a pretty good hunch that my marriage would fall a little short of this love.

You see, when I stood there ready to give myself to my groom, I was consumed with love. But not the same “love” that Paul is describing to the Corinthians. I had me lots of “eros” and some “philos” too, but barely a smattering of this pure “agape” love.

So what are these different kinds of love? In Beth Moore’s, Living Beyond Yourself Bible study, she gives a great explanation of the different kinds of love and the words that the Greeks and Hebrews used to describe them.

The first is “eros” – a word never used in our New Testament – it means “longing and desire” and is associated with sexual love. Beth describes eros as a selfish love that asks “what can I get for myself?”

The next two words that pertain to the marriage relationship are Hebrew words used in the Old Testament. “Dowd” is found in the Song of Solomon and means in this context, “my one beloved.” The second word used in the Song of Solomon’s inspired description of love is “rayah” and means “a female associate.” Beth says that Solomon simply means “the woman of my dreams.”

Beth goes on to detail another kind of love – the unique love called “philos”. This term can be defined as “the love one has toward a friend or companion” and can mean quite simply “friend.” Philos can be a love of persons or things and can have both positive and negative aspects.

None of these words are used or described in 1 Corinthians 13. Beth teaches us that these forms of love are not the kind of love God expresses through us via the filling of His Holy Spirit.

No, this perfect love that we can be filled with through the Holy Spirit, which is described in 1 Corinthians 13, is a divine love called “agape.”

Beth describes agape as love that is:

“propelled by the highest interest…Agape is not as much a feeling as a response…Emotion may accompany agape, but emotion and agape are not the same.”

As we learn in 1 Corinthians 4-8, agape:
1. Is patient
2. Is kind
3. Does not envy
4. Does not boast
5. Is not proud
6. Is not rude
7. Is not self seeking
8. Is not easily angered
9. Keeps no record of wrongs
10. Does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth
11. Always protects
12. Always trusts
13. Always hopes
14. Always perseveres
15. Never Fails

What a list! No wonder I feel overwhelmed and unworthy – I cannot love like this. My best attempts don’t even come close!

Boy was I relieved when Beth uttered the same. She says:

“Beloved, we are incapable of agape! No matter how hard we try, we cannot exercise this kind of love…Agape is divine love. Its only origin is the heart of God.”

But we don’t have to be left feeling hopeless, without any way to express agape. God has provided a way. Beth tells us “Agape is the love of God expressed through us to others.” “How?” you cry, “I can’t do it – we just covered that!”

Enter the Holy Spirit! God has provided us with a supernatural way to respond with agape.

As we have been learning in Beth’s study on the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit requires surrender and yielding to Christ. It requires us to pour out ourselves so we can be filled with Him. It requires that we are in right relationship with God.

And when we are in relationship with God, when we have received Christ and been given the Holy Spirit, we can allow the Holy Spirit to move within us. Through this miraculous work of the Holy Spirit we can respond with agape, even when we don’t “feel” it. In fact Beth says that agape is more a response than a feeling.

I will conclude here (sorry for such a long post!) with Beth’s action plan to apply agape through God’s power, not ours. This is how she puts it:

• We confront a situation in which God requires us to agape another person.
• We admit to Him that we lack agape for this person.
• We consider how God would personally respond to this person according to the Scriptures.
• We act in obedience and respond as He would.

Thank you Lord, that through your power and Holy Spirit, I can be transformed to express agape. So far I have been failing miserably. I lack agape. Help me to walk in obedience and, through the Holy Spirit, to live out a life of agape.

Addie	Heather*	Carol
M	Rach	Jeana
Jenn	Amanda	MamaB
GiBee	Boomama	Maria
Blair	Heather	Nancy
Janna	Flipflop	Robin
Sherry	Patricia	Tara
Lauren	HolyMama!	Faith
Christy	Eph2810	Karin
Leann	Rachel	Janice
This is a list of the women participating in the study and the links to their blogs. New postings on the study will be published for the next ten weeks, between Friday 8pm – Saturday 8am. Please feel free to visit each of us and comment. Everyone is welcome to participate in this discussion as we seek to live beyond ourselves. May God bless you richly from the hearing of His Word.